This time I’ll be covering the month of September, 2007 - a genuine beauty of a month for PC gamers. Where August kicked it off with the amazing BioShock and pretty damn good Guild Wars: Eye of the North releases, September looks to be the month to really kickstart a wealth of quality releases to finish the year in a loud bang of PC gaming bliss. We’ve got some great times ahead of ourselves, but for now - let’s look at what we already have, shall we?

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

This standalone follow-up to the critically acclaimed Company of Heroes introduces two new sides, the British 2nd Army and the German Panzer Elite. Each of these sides has it’s own singleplayer campaign and are both playable in multiplayer, alongside the original German and American sides of the original game. A solid successor to one of the most well known strategy games in this day and age and a worthy purchase for any fans. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t add a whole lot of innovative features, but merely expands upon the original. Certainly, that’s what a follow-up is supposed to do, but in comparison to THQ’s previous standalone successor, Warhammer 40:000 Dawn of War’s Dark Crusade, it’s a tad disappointing.

You can download the demo, of the original game, here. (1.76 GB)

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The long awaited ’sequel’ to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, this game combined the Quake universe with it’s predecessor’s gameplay - along with a couple of gameplay enhancements. A genuine multiplayer combat game, with vehicles, classes and objectives, it’s a game that’s certain to be enjoyed by Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory fans. That said, as a Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake fan, I have to say I didn’t like it as much as the games it draws it’s inspiration from.

Still, it introduces a lot of interesting gameplay elements, like deployables and vehicles - which might appeal to some of the less oldschool shooter fans and it certainly stays fun for quite a while. A decent purchase if you can’t bear the - very short - wait for Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 3, but I have this nagging feeling those two games will totally overshadow this one, for good reason.

You can download the demo, here. (727 MB)

Medal of Honor: Airborne

It’s been a while, but we finally have another new Medal of Honor game worth mentioning. Featuring stellar graphics, immersive gameplay and a 3 hour short campaign… this is one intense, but way too short shooter. Great for people who haven’t had enough of WW2 games yet, but not really recommended for anyone else. This game mixes the intensity of Call of Duty with the slightly more realistic touch of the Medal of Honor games of old and it’s pretty cool to play, but just too short and mediocre to stay entertaining for very long.

You can download the demo, here. (1.27 GB)

The Settlers: Rise of an Empire

This is the kind of game that city builders amongst you will love and hate. It’s got great graphics awesome visual detail, but it’s not quite as in-depth as it’s predecessors and pushes the less-than-mediocre combat to the forefront a tad too much. All in all a great game for a couple of hours of fun, particularly if you enjoy Settlers games (like me), but not quite the greatest game in the series.

I’ve already given some more extensive impressions of this game’s demo before, which you can read here. Unfortunately none of the issues I raised were fixed with the retail version, so you can pretty much take that as a guideline for what the full game is like. That said, it’ll still be a most entertaining experience if you like these kinds of games - and I’m certain I’ll buy it eventually as well.

You can download the demo, here. (1.37 GB)

World in Conflict

This is beyond a shadow of a doubt the most impressive release of the month. It’s not only a gorgeous game, that will have spectators questioning whether they’re looking at a shooter, before they realize that you’re commanding squads of units in a strategic environment. If you want to admire beautiful sights and push your top-of-the-line system to it’s limits, this is the game you’ve been waiting for.

Better yet, it’s also one of the most interesting, refreshing and awesome strategy games in a long time. The World in Conflict beta test had already left a very positive impression on me, but it turns out that the full game’s multiplayer is even more enjoyable - and has even been enhanced slightly with the recently released patch. The singleplayer aspect is certainly no disappointment either, as the storytelling and mission structure is amongst the very best in the genre’s history.

And yet… while I can’t get enough of this game, there are strategy gamers who don’t quite like it. It’s unusual, teambased, small-scale, gameplay is something that’s not going to be appreciated by every strategy fan. Of course this only accounts for a slight minority, and the nature of the gameplay also means that many shooter fans will love this game, particularly in multiplayer. If you’re looking to play a new game, this is the one you’ll want to buy! Yes, even over BioShock!

You can download the demo, here, (1.2 GB - UK Demo) here (1.2 GB - US Demo), or here (1.39 GB - German Demo).

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